DevStream – 2017-1103

Ok, yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve done a DevStream review. Originally, my focus was on upcoming news about the game’s release and major updates, and after launch, I just got caught up in the game itself, among other things. But I still see a lot of traffic from people looking for more information on the game, so I figured it’s time to continue my reviews of the DevStreams.

This is their 1 hour teaser on twitter earlier, and with luck we’ll see what this is all about!

“The Holy Trinity of Tank, DPS, and Heals… When in Balance can save us all!”

Andrew Riker – Lead Systems Designer joining Andy and Nicole today! This is the guy to talk to about balance issues or things you want to see.

Things will be covered are Quality of Life Changes, Elemental changes, Looting, and then they’ll get to the big thing they teased on twitter!

This update is scheduled to come in November, but no date specified yet.

ELEMENTALISM CHANGES

Issues – Early game you tend to overhead before you use your energy, and later game, you are managing cooling more than damage.

Changes – Increasing Heat you lose in cooling abilities and decreasing the heat generated by abilities. Also removing “Heat Bar Flip” when you transition from low heat to high heat modes. the effects are still there, but it removes the delay that happens during that transition.

Crystallized Blaze (Passive) will stay Blaze all the time.

Other passives are getting buffs to add damage in addition to managing your cooling abilities.

Heat level damage Bonus will increase as well! the idea is that it will be harder to reach higher heat levels, so they become more powerful for you!

Eldritch Scourge – something about corruption – I missed this but will review and update this later.

Q&A –

Tanking Weapon Balance – If you combine cooldowns you can forego need for healing. Looking at reducing the length of time certain abilities last so tanks don’t feel as if they don’t need heals or anyone else. The issue is new tanks NEED these abilities.

Will DPS Checks get reduced so that tanks won’t look at the need to go sans heals? This will be something they will look at later.

LOOT –

Currently 3 avenues for progression:

Signets – Lairs

Glyphs – Scenarios

Talismans/Weapons – Dungeons

They will be changing this up somewhat so that you can get some of these things in all three! You will still focus on the same item progression in the above avenues, and have a lesser chance of gaining items from the other two. So if you do scenarios, you’s still get Glyph progression things first, and possibly get a signet or distillates.

In addition, the first 5 chests in a dungeon will be the same as they are now, but the End Boss dungeon chest will be increased.

NOTE – THIS DOES NOT AFFECT STORY MODE DUNGEONS! ELITE DUNGEONS ONLY!

Final Loot Change – New Waist Talismans – Will give new stats that give different effects based on what weapon you are using at that time. These waist talismans will be diluted into the Loot Lantern drops! So when you see the Loot Lanterns dropping, instead of the Cache, you may actually be getting a new Talisman instead! It will be good to have actual GEAR dropping once again!

Empowering Items –

We will now be able to use items that have experience in them already. They will grant 40% of the experience in that item!

Signet and Glyph removal costs based on quality level of the item!

Red background items have had their values buffed!

Equal Footing Buff in the Seoul Fight Club so people can test things how they want.

Patron Benefits – If you log in and get your daily benefits, and THEN become a Patron, they are fixing the ability to get your key and cooldowns and other Patron Benefits

Summonable Vendor coming soon! – Summon a Vendor to your location using an item you can purchase in Agartha.

Faction City and Museum of the Occult Teleporters coming soon! Finally!

The THING…

ANIMA ALLOCATION – New tab in your ability window, available once you get to level 20. You will get the Combat Triangle, and allow you to allocate your Anima into different roles so you can have a degree of customization when you want to change roles to do anything with your friends or what have you. this will work with the Gear Mangler, and will cost NOTHING!

The Default setting is going to be 90% DPS and 10% survival. Once you reach level 20, you can change this as you see fit.

Gear will have a Base scale balanced around your preferred role. But you can then change your allocation based on your percentage you choose on the allocation tab. This will be interesting to play with once it goes live!

Glyphs, Signets, weapons, and item effects are not affected by this. This will only affect your base stats on your talismans.

Winter event is coming back!

Extra life tomorrow! Check out the Funcom List for participating streamers and give some love!

Any further questions, don’t forget the FunCom Discord channel!

Congrats to Ben and Chatania (Probably got that spelling wrong! Sorry!) getting Married today! And Happy Birthday to Chatania (And Andrew as well)!

That’s it. hope I didn’t miss too much out of the stream. I’ll try to review it later and update this as necessary! thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you in the Secret World!